Amit Mitra is new GST panel head

 West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra was on Friday appointed as the head of Goods and Services Tax (GST) panel with the Centre hoping to push the Constitutional Amendment Bill in the upcoming Budget session for an early roll out of GST.

On Friday, a week ahead of the Budget session, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley chaired a meeting of the empowered committee of state finance ministers on GST in which Mitra was unanimously elected its head.

With Mitra at the helm, the government is hoping to get Trinamool Congress’ support in the Rajya Sabha. Mitra will be the second panel head from West Bengal. Former Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta from CPI (M) held the post for long during the UPA regime.